Posted on 01/05/2008 6:25:53 AM PST by Daffynition
When critics attack the United Nations, they often accuse the world body of being a web of bureaucracy.
Now officials there are hoping to turn that image around by using the web of Spiderman.
The UN recently announced a union with the comic book company, Marvel.
Together, they aim to print a special comic that will see the superhero fight alongside UN aid workers and peacekeepers.
Marvel scribes have offered to pen the work for free.
The UN is now seeking private backing so it can distribute 1m free copies to American schoolchildren. The project's creator, the French producer Romuald Sciora, says he hopes it will then be translated into European languages.
'Desperate measure'
Already critics warn their spider-sense is tingling.
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"You can have Spiderman in a comic book all you want, but it's not going to change public perception"
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John Bolton, the outspoken former US envoy to the UN, called it an "act of desperation".
He said the world body should concentrate on improving its overall performance.
"You can have Spiderman in a comic book all you want, but it's not going to change public perception," he told the BBC:
However, the UN's top man on the project says critics are missing the point.
Amir Dossal leads the UN Partnerships Office, which is putting up half the money for the project.
He told the BBC it was not intended to promote the UN per se, but rather to inform children about UN humanitarian causes.
The Spidey touch?
Nonetheless, diplomats and comic book fans alike are speculating why the UN should ally itself with the web-slinger.
Jerry Gladstone, co-owner of New York's Midtown Comics store, told the BBC Spiderman's face was better known than such Marvel companions as the X-Men and Fantastic Four.
His colleague, Brian Quinn, noted that Spiderman's story makes him "one of the most relatable characters in all of comic books".
"Spidey", he said, is "just an average guy" who struggles to use his incredible powers responsibly. That, he suggested, is not so far from the position of the UN.
Ultimately, though, the project's success or failure does not depend on the Green Goblin or Dr Doom, but on the reaction of its target audience.
The BBC asked several American schoolchildren on tours of the UN HQ what they thought of the idea.
Most said they would indeed be more interested if the organisation were associated with the wall-crawler.
One little boy, however, dissented vociferously.
"I don't like any superheroes," he told the BBC. "I don't think they're real
The comic is set for release in 2009, so the UN will find out then whether fictional heroes can drum up real support.
Only if he were putting a beating on most of the UN staff.
I’m thinking more along the lines of the Teletubbies.
I knew Marvel had been loosing it.... Now IM SURE. RIP Marvel..... you are now dead to me.
My children love Spiderman, However, they will never again get a spiderman toy or movie or anything Spiderman from this point forward. Spiderman is supposed to fight tyranny and crime, The ‘un’ is nothing but tyrants and criminals. I am writing and calling Marvel to complain and suggest others to do the same.
Dan Klores Communications
Jeff Klein
Executive Vice President
212-981-5189
jeff_klein@dkcnews.com
Marvel Entertainment, Inc.
417 5th. Avenue
New York, NY 10016
Marvel Studios
9242 Beverly Boulevard
Suite 350
Beverly Hills, CA 90210
The U.N. IS evil!
Mr. Ditko has largely been a self-published (and private) cartoonist for the past 3 decades.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mr._A
Mr. A is one of the clearest examples of Ditko's belief in Ayn Rand's Objectivism. Typical stories will have one character convince him or herself that doing just a few illegal acts to get ahead in life will not make him or her a bad person. This character's crimes escalate when they must either take action to cover their previous misdeeds or are now too closely tied to more dangerous criminals to simply walk away. The stories invariably end with Mr. A confronting the criminals and telling them that they are all guilty, including the character who had wished to remain good. A staple for most stories involves this character trying to justify his or her immoral actions to both others and him or herself, blaming things such as environment and society rather than taking responsibility.Almost every character speaks about the ideological reasoning behind their actions on every panel, thus showing that the adventure story is not meant to be just entertainment, but is to show an ideological dialogue and hopefully sway readers over to Objectivism.
Not all of Mr. A's stories are crime adventures. Some are allegorical representations of the guilty trying to explain why they compromised their values. Mr. A, on a white platform, denounces their explanations. These stories typically end with the guilty falling into an abyss off of their black platform. This representation often occurs at the end of the adventure stories as well.
Detractors have said that Mr. A is an unfeeling character who offers no remorse or mercy to criminals. In the stories themselves Mr. A says that he feels only for the innocent and victimized. His brand of justice might seem harsh to some, but on the other hand his punishments for criminals arguably fit the crimes they committed. People who commit "just one crime", such as accepting dirty money are turned over to authorities to stand trial for what they have done. Mr. A refuses to overlook their transgressions, even if they profess they will be good from then on. Killers and would-be-killers generally find themselves in situations where they need Mr. A's assistance to save them, but since they had no respect for innocent lives then he offers no aid for their guilty ones. It is only when an innocent life is directly threatened that Mr. A will kill, and when he does so it is without remorse.
Ditko responded to his critics in a Mr. A essay titled "Violence the Phoney Issue", printed in Guts #5 in 1969. This essay was reprinted on the web site "Dial B For Blog" #298.
Note if you do manage to go to the Wikipedia entry, it incorrectly states that a character in Alan Moore's The Watchmen was based on Mr. A. Whoever wrote it was wrong. The characters in The Watchmen were based on the old Charton Comics characters which Warner-DC had acquired through mergers. Moore's character was based on Charlton's The Question, who was a "more marketable" similar character. And there is mention made of Moore's other fannish referencing this work. Mr. Moore was the author of V For Vendetta. It is safe to say that Moore and Ditko do not share political viewpoints.
Both Marvel and DC push the liberal agenda in their storylines these days. It is one thing to hold a viewpoint as a creator, it is another to force a single vision down the throats of readers of popular culture figures that date back much farther than the current mushheads who are mucking around with the stories.
It’s Spider-Man.
This actually makes a lot of sense. Just about a week ago, Marvel published a comic in which Peter Parker made a deal with the devil in order to save his aunt’s life. The price? His marriage to Mary Jane has been completely erased from the history of the Marvel Universe. Never happened.
See, kids? One day, your hero is making deals with the devil. The next, he’s working with the UN.
There are marvel characters “from” the areas of the world that the UN has been caught in sex scandals involving slavery and children. There is evil for the comic book characters to out. It isn’t the US. And we don’t need a Frenchman writing a US comic to condemn us and indoctrinate our children.
The only phrase that comes to mind is “painting a turd.”
Mark
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